


Smoke Without Mirrors

by raendown



Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 15:31:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17563151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/pseuds/raendown
Summary: Shisui was only out here training because his sensei had told him to improve skills he already thought were pretty good. He's insulted and tired. Then he's confused and maybe a little bit frightened when he makes an incredible discovery simply by being in the right place at the right time and saying the right thing.





	Smoke Without Mirrors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Officer_Jennie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Officer_Jennie/gifts).



> Happy birthday!!!!!

Training was boring. Alright, not all training was boring and Shisui was usually rather good at it but he found standing in one place and doing the same thing over and over again to be very much _not_ fun. Doing something he was good at would have been fun. Instead he was stuck here blowing one fireball after another because his sensei said they weren’t big enough.

“Grand Fireballs are supposed to be grand,” she’d told him with a scoff. “You’re better than this. Practice until they’re the size of Fugaku-sama’s.”

Shisui kicked at the grass under his feet a few times, irritated just remembering how the shame had burned through him at her words, then took his stance again and reached deep in to his rapidly emptying chakra reserves. His Grand Fireballs were just fine as they were. So what if they weren’t as big as his clan head’s? There weren’t many in the whole of their clan who could match his fireballs and he didn’t know why his sensei thought he, a sixteen year old, would be able to do so. Sometimes it was more obvious than others that she had not grown up as part of a clan. Civilian born, an excellent soldier, but she had frighteningly little concept of how clan jutsu worked.

Letting his irritation fuel him, Shisui ran through the hand signs he had memorized years ago and brought his fingers to his mouth, blowing through the circle with little regard for how the heat of the flames stung his hard-earned callouses. He had about three and a half seconds to stare in awe as pride welled up inside his chest upon seeing how massive that fireball was. Then he realized he had aimed poorly in his anger and the only tree in this barren muddy field was now alight with happy little flickers of orange and yellow.

“Ah crap,” he muttered under his breath, reaching down to his hip where there should have been a skin of water for just such an occasion. He was no expert at water jutsu but he’d bullied the Hatake kid in to teaching him something simple once; all he needed was a source of water and he could put out small blazes like this.

The only problem lay in the fact that his water skin wasn’t there on his hip. Shisui twisted to glare at his belt, personally offended by the sudden realization that he had left it by the river when he refilled it earlier.

“Well that’s not good.” Lifting his head again he gnawed on his lip indecisively. “Uh…please stop burning? Damn it, I’m gonna be in so much trouble if I burn down another tree.” It wasn’t his fault everything around him was always so flammable. And it wasn’t like he did these things on purpose, it was always an accident. Trouble just seemed to follow him around like a clingy ex-lover some days.

Shisui twisted his fingers together and wracked his brain as he watched the smoke grow and collect – much more smoke than such a small flame should warrant, he noted without really thinking much of it. He definitely started thinking more about it when the smoke billowed out and rushed back towards itself like a sentient cloud. A thick plume shaped more like an arm wrapped itself around the small fire until it was no longer visible, holding in place for a few breathless moments, and then dispersed to reveal that the flame had been completely smothered. Which should have been good news except all Shisui could do was stare as the smoke rushed back _inside the tree_.

His legs trembled underneath him with fear. In his short career as a Konoha shinobi he had seen some really weird stuff but nothing like this – and all the weird things he had seen until now had always had an explanation, a human will behind them casting their jutsu and manipulating the world to their benefit. There was no one here now but him.

“Always has to be me,” he grumbled. “I always find the weird shit. No one’s going to believe me that the tree smoked its own fire out. Not that it matters; whatever the hell that was is clearly going smother me too when I turn my back. Great. Wonderful. Death by smoky tree, just how I wanted to go!”

“I won’t hurt you.”

“WHO SAID THAT!?” Shisui didn’t think his eyes could get any wider but he proved himself wrong just then as he spun in circles trying to find the source of that voice. He was no sensor but every shinobi worth their salt could tell when they weren’t alone and he was absolutely sure that he was alone – or he had been up until about five seconds ago.

His useless search came to a halt when he noticed that the tree had once again began to smoke. Shisui could have sworn the fire had been completely smothered but even if there were still some lingering coals left burning they definitely should not have been enough to make _that_ much smoke, a good-sized plume billowing out rather than up and then dropping to gather an inch or so above the ground. He was just wondering if this was all a very strange prank – one of his teammates thought she had a great sense of humor even though she really didn’t – when the weird smoke contracted within itself and coalesced in to the shape of a human.

From somewhere within the shifting darkness two eyes opened, burning red and black in a mirror of the Sharingan.

“What the fuuuuck,” Shisui whispered to himself. His feet shifted back a step, preparing the run, but he stopped when the red eyes in the smoke blinked at him sadly.

“Oh, I frightened you. My apologies.” Whatever it was, it sounded _sad_. Shisui found that sort of offensive in a way. Nothing so unnatural had any right to feel sad about frightening him. It was too innocent of an emotion and he really didn’t want to stand here thinking about how cute that was.

He still paused, even knowing how stupid it was.

“Uh…thanks for putting out the fire I guess, Mr. Smoke Demon Thing. Please don’t eat me?”

“I’m not going to eat you.” The human shape tilted its head. “And I am not a demon. I am an Enenra.”

“Oh. Hello…Enenra.”

“That’s not my name.” Red eyes crinkled softly with amusement and Shisui wondered if he was going crazy, seeing things that weren’t really there and giving them emotions they shouldn’t be able to feel. “I am made of smoke and…well, I suppose you could call me a demon after all.”

He looked saddened by the admission and even though he knew it was crazy Shisui couldn’t help but want to take that sadness away. It was in his nature, to the dismay of his clan head, although he had never understood why kindness should be a bad thing. A shinobi should also be allowed to be human. Fugaku-sama had seemed to agree when Shisui was younger but after his firstborn son passed away only a few days after being born he had changed, become insular and more aggressive with little time for his dreaming nephew.

“So if Enenra isn’t your name then it’s your…species?” he guessed, trying for a cheerful tone. “Do you have a name?” His efforts were rewarded when those pretty red eyes brightened.

“Yes. My name is Itachi.”

“Well that seems like a silly name for smoke. But I think I’ve heard it somewhere else before.” One hand rubbed at his chin in thought as he wracked his brain for why that sounded so familiar. He almost missed the way sadness crept back in to Itachi’s eyes, his form wilting and blurring around the edges.

He got an answer before he could ask. “I suppose you probably have. Most in the clan would have heard my name, though I doubt many would recognize me now.”

“No I don’t think I’ve heard any legends about smoke creatures. I just think I knew a guy once. Hey, do you do anything super scary? Like, you’re not going to fill my house with smoke now that I’ve seen you and kill me in my sleep are you?” Shisui clapped his hands against his cheeks with horror. “You’re not going to take over my body or anything are you? I swear I’m too pretty to die like that!”

Itachi’s form twitched and a moment later he began to laugh quietly.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to do any of those things,” he said. Shisui drooped with relief.

“Good, good. I mean, I had sort of planned it all out, you know? A nice heroic death on the battlefield when I’ve reached a good age so I can sacrifice myself nobly and go out as a legend. That sounds pretty good don’t you think?” Mostly joking, Shisui was startLed when Itachi seemed to be giving his words some serious thought.

“I think any death is a terrible one.”

Pinching his lips, Shisui tilted his head. “Alright so if you’re not going to eat me then why did you…show yourself to me?”

“You asked the tree to stop burning. I was going to hide in the smoke so I could go find somewhere else to wait for nightfall but you were so polite and I didn’t want you to get in trouble. You seemed worried about that.” Leaning forward, Itachi’s body seemed to densify even more until Shisui could make out the faint outlines of an earnest expression.

“Huh. You look more human now.”

“Oh! I hadn’t realized!”

“Realized what? Whoa!”

The hand he had lifted in a thoughtless jerked back instead when Itachi’s vague shadowy form gave one final twitch and solidified completely. Instead of being human shaped he now looked like a human, fine details and skin, clothing and all. His long hair was dark and pulled back in to a low ponytail, wispy fringe hanging down to frame large eyes and deep tear tracks. Pouty lips were twisted to one side in an anxious grimace while his long thin hands twisted themselves together.

If Shisui had met this boy on the street he would have said he were another Uchiha. He would have thought ‘ _damn he’s cute_ ’ and gone to talk to him – especially if he were toeing the ground in the adorable manner he was now. What he would not have thought was that the boy in front of him was anything other than human, so good was the disguise.

“Gotta admit,” he mumbled. “That is as impressive as it is scary.”

“I thought it would make you more comfortable,” Itachi said.

“Hm. It sure made me more something.” Tilting his head side to side, Shisui decided that the transformation was seamless. Nothing about the boy in front of him showed any hints that he was, in fact, an Enenra.

The smile Itachi gave him was disarming and dangerously adorable. “You’re funny.”

Shisui nodded and said nothing for a minute. Now that he had taken a closer look he realized that Itachi really did look like an Uchiha. Every detail from the smooth dark hair to the pale skin to the way he held himself, there were more than a dozen people Shisui could have guessed he was related to. It was eerie, suspicious, just out of place enough that he couldn’t set it aside as a mere coincidence.

Not that he had to say anything; it seemed Itachi noticed him noticing.

“Ah. Are you, perhaps, wondering where you might have seen me before?”

“Something like that,” he admitted. Itachi nodded and his expression saddened once more.

Turning his head to look off towards the center of the compound he said, “You might have met me, I wouldn’t remember, but it would not have been in this body. I was…much younger then.”

“Eh?” Shisui tilted his head. When Itachi beckoned him closer as though intending to tell him a secret he went without questioning it. Later he would realize how stupid that had been, of course, doing whatever a strange entity told him to and coming close enough to be attacked – or worse, possessed. He was lucky that this time it turned out the smoke creature wanted nothing more than to whisper to him quietly in a field where they were already quite alone.

“Do you know a woman named Mikoto?” Itachi asked. “Or a man named Fugaku?”

“Yeah, they’re my aunt and uncle.”

“I see. And did you know their…their son?”

“You mean Sasuke?” Shisui asked.

He was startled to see Itachi’s eyes widen with shock. “They…they had another child, then?”

“Another? Oh!” Shisui bonked his own forehead with the heel of one hand. “You meant their first child! They did have another son years and years back but he passed away of some sort of sickness. I think he had underdeveloped lungs or something. Don’t really remember his name though, it’s been so long. It was something like…like…”

The blood in his veins ran cold and Shisui felt a tingling running up his spine. Itachi, he noticed, watched his eyes grow wide with no sign of surprise on his own face. He didn’t seem too worried about having his secret figured out.

“You…that was…but…how?” By the end of his spluttering Shisui’s voice was coming out as a frightened whisper.

“As you said, I was sick. But I was not ready to leave this world just yet.” Itachi shook his head and sighed, turning his gaze back towards where Shisui now realized his clan head’s house would be. “Father believed in following tradition. When he cremated my body – he didn’t mean for anything to happen I’m sure but – my spirit was released in to the smoke from the pyre and I have been here ever since, watching. You’re the first person I’ve spoken to in…I don’t know how many years it’s been since I took this form.”

“Fourteen,” Shisui provided faintly.

“So many? It doesn’t feel like that many years have passed.”

More than one thing raced through his mind at once and Shisui felt a little woozy trying to process them all. Firstly that he was speaking with the spirit of a dead boy who had attached itself to a new form made of smoke and then had the audacity to grow up regardless of whether he was still alive or not. Secondly that he had mentally called a dead spirit cute because that also seemed important at the moment and he couldn’t help but still think Itachi was on his way to becoming a damn attractive teen.

And thirdly, the most important, that he had _known_ Itachi. They had met several days after the baby was born, though Shisui was so young he remembered little more than a tuft of dark hair and the worry on all the adults’ faces when the baby wouldn’t cry. For some reason he felt responsible for this boy, dead or alive, and he had to fight the urge to invite Itachi home with him.

How he would have explained a smoke demon to his mother was beyond him – not to mention he had no idea whether Itachi slept, let alone where they would have found room for an extra futon.

“So…what’s being dead like?” he ventured after enough time had passed that the silence was getting painfully awkward.

“Lonely,” Itachi answered.

“I, uh, should have guessed that.” Scratching at the back of his head he made an offer without stopping to think it through. “Maybe I could, like, come hang out sometimes? Do you always spend your time in trees?”

“No, this was just the first place I thought to conceal myself when you came in to sight.”

Shisui snickered, breaking out in to true laughter when Itachi gave him an affronted look. “Well I guess it wouldn’t be the most terrible thing to come see you again. You seem like an alright guy. And hey, it’s not like we don’t know each other, right?”

He tried very hard to deny the flutter of his heart when Itachi granted him another smile. It was a really nice smile, so sue him. Getting to see it again wouldn’t be the worst thing that ever happened to him. And if he got to keep that smile to himself for a while until he figured out how to handle the fact that their dead clan heir was still hanging around with a body made of smoke? He’d done stupider things, he had to admit.

When Itachi shyly reached out to touch his arm Shisui’s heart made a good effort to leap straight out of his chest. Knowing they could physically touch made it all the worse.

“Would you like me to give you a few pointers on how to perform the Grand Fireball Jutsu you were working on?”

And he was intelligent? Shisui closed his eyes and wondered vaguely whether Itachi would taste like smoke if they kissed. He was so screwed.


End file.
